Will Atkinson, a senior surveyor at CB Richard Ellis, was named Rising Star of the Year at the inaugural 1st Friday Property Awards, held at The British Academy of Film and Television Arts on Piccadilly in London on Friday.

The award identified Atkinson as the ‘best of the best’ young person in property across all of the 1st Friday Award categories.

In the Office achievement category, John Moffat, a development survey at Nikal, beat off competition from Desiree Bingandadi, a graduate valuer at DV Services London, John Ross, a building survey at Watts, and Kate Oliphant, an associate director at CB Richard Ellis.

Mark Simms, an associate partner at Cushman & Wakefield walked away with the Retail achievement award. Also shortlisted in the Retail category were Kate Sedgeman, an associate director at CBRE, and Atkinson, the winner of the overall Rising Star award.

The Residential achievement award was won by Charlotte Rosier, a land manager at Groveworld. Nitin Boodhun, a consultant at EC Harris, and Ben Pewter, an assistant quantity surveyor at City & County, were also shortlisted in this category.

The Investment achievement category was won by Thurston Guthrie-Brown, an associate director at CBRE. Also shortlisted in this column were James Markby, also an associate director at CBRE, and this year’s Rising Star, Atkinson.

Before the winners were announced, Mark Allan chief executive of student accommodation developer, Unite; Mike Sales, head of property investment at Henderson; and Property Week columnist Fiona Hamilton, a partner at King Sturge, shared their secrets of success with the 150 young people at the event.

The awards were presented by Giles Barrie, editor of Property Week, and Richard Owen, chief executive of the real estate and construction division of insurance firm, Lockton, sponsors of the awards.

Entrants in the 1st Friday Awards had to have less than five years’ experience. A panel of eight senior industry figures judged them on their performance between May 2007 and April 2008.

Details of the 2009 1st Friday events will be announced shortly at www.propertyweek.com/1stfriday